Larus?
“Sylvie?” says Ronan, lifting a hand in my direction but stopping himself.
I lean against a pillar for support. The world feels as if it’s tilting beneath me, my breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. It takes a minute, maybe longer, before I can steady myself enough to find my voice, to push past the tightness in my throat and speak.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, knowing it isn’t enough. It could never be enough to make up for what he lost. What my people took from him. I look up into Taran’s blue eyes, so vividly clear and piercing I feel exposed beneath their gaze.
We took everything from him, just as Ronan and his family had taken everything from us. “I didn’t know.”
I’ve hated the Orsa since I was a child. I was brought up with warnings about leaving our lands, told countless times by my parents, by Larus, by Adria, by Seth, and even by our servants, about the danger they posed to us. That they would kill me in my sleep without a second thought. That they’d drag me off in the night and force me to bear their children. I accepted it as true without question.
And I still believe them, but I can’t help but think about why Taran joined the fight against us. It wasn’t because he was inherently bad. He was just a child; how bad could he have possibly been? It was because we had taken everything fromhim, and in a brutal, horrible way.
We took out our enemies that day, and in the process, we made a new one.
“I tried to fight Ronan when he found me. I thought he was one of you.”
His words sting, but I can’t blame him for seeing me as one of his enemies.
I had seen him that way until only moments ago.
“Thankfully, all he had was that shovel. But my father was so impressed with his courage, he asked him to join his guard in training, and the rest is history,” says Ronan.
Taran clears his throat, an awkward smile tugging at his lips at Ronan’s praise, searching for something to redirect the conversation and lighten the mood.
“If we’re reliving the past, you should at least tell her about the birthday when you challenged me to a duel because you thought I’d drunk the last of your beer.”
Ronan laughs, and I can see the years of friendship between them. Taran is more than Ronan’s guard. He’s a confidant, a companion whose loyalty is rooted not in duty but in their history together.
I’m embarrassed by what I’ve said about him.
But I’m also angry because it all comes down to the food. Maybe if we’d had enough food, we wouldn’t have needed to treat poachers so harshly, and we could have shared more of our land. “I am sorry for what happened to you. No one should have treated you or your people that way. But my people were starving because of what Selara demands of us. My people arestillstarving because of what Selara demands of us. We have done what we have to in order to survive.”
Ronan and Taran exchange a look I can’t read. “Is that what they’ve told you?” asks Ronan.
My blood boils at the implication that we’d lie about that. “I’ve seen the hungry people myself. I’ve seen the spoiled grain.”
Ronan’s brow furrows, genuine confusion spreading over his features as he studies me. It’s clear this revelation unsettles him, and for a moment, he seems at a loss for words. “But have you yourself ever gone hungry?”
“I—”
No, I hadn’t. The castle had many mouths to feed, all of them vital to keeping the country—province, whatever—running.
Just because there was enough to feed the castle, that didn’t mean there was enough for everyone.
“There was a problem with the grain last harvest,” Ronan explains, “but we increased our imports from Brakkar to make up for it. Your stores should have kept you going in the meantime. That’s the report I have from Typhon. Was it inaccurate?”
Shit.
I may have just revealed something I shouldn’t have. I know we’ve kept Typhon out of our plans. I’m not sure what we told him to report back to the king. It sounds like we managed to hide the problem with the grain from Typhon.
But…why? I thought we’d asked Ronan for help, and he’d refused. He’s acting like he didn’t know there was a problem at all.
“Just because things are better now doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten the past,” I lie, hoping he doesn’t notice my confusion.
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” says Ronan. “But I hope you’ll also think of the future.”
He looks at me intently, and Taran backs away a bit to give us some space.
